With parliament making the ultimate decision regarding HS2, much of the debate about the principles of the project will be conducted within civil society. We need ways of making these big infrastructure decisions that weigh local impact against the national interest, writes Dan Durrant.

HS2 and The Big Society may seem to have little in common. One is a big, expensive, national strategic decision the other is about the ‘little platoons’ of civil society filling the gaps left by a receding state. But looking beyond the (shaky) Westminster consensus, it is the politics of civil society that dominates HS2. In places as far apart as the Chilterns and Camden the public sphere is alive with small groups making the case, usually, against the project. To dismiss them as NIMBYs is lazy shorthand and foolish. Concern about the local environment in other circumstances is a mark of civic responsibility. It is also foolish to dismiss these ‘little platoons’ because, unlike our representative political bodies, these groups are not constrained. They can operate equally at the strategic and local level. They can attack the justification for a project like HS2 where it is weak, the Cost Benefit Analysis or the Environmental Impact Assessment. They can and do apply pressure on local politicians bringing issues onto the agenda.

The problem is that we have consensus in parliament and a polarised public debate. There seems to be no room for a balanced consideration of the issues. We need ways of making these big decisions that weigh local impact against the national interest. I argue that any solution needs to see civil society included in the decision making. And that the current argument over HS2, like the ones over London’s airports, windfarms or fracking, is certainly not the best way to decide upon how to meet our infrastructure needs.

Part of the problem is the tendency to depoliticise big infrastructure projects. Political decision makers try to hide behind technocratic and economic rhetoric. This leaves an uncomfortable democratic deficit. But as our allegiance to political parties and trust in government declines these strategies are less effective. The politics gets dragged back in by an able and engaged civil society. There is now an understanding of how to pick apart the technical basis of projects like HS2 and the assumptions behind them.

It does not help that progress is not what it used to be. In rapidly industrialising countries it is easier to make the link between infrastructure, progress and rising living standards. However, in the UK the costs of mitigation and compensation are rising. The value of the benefits might not be. And as the boundaries between public and private blur it is unclear what the ‘national interest’ is anymore. It is certainly clear that the beneficiaries of HS2 are not the ones bearing the cost.

The appalling record of overestimating benefits and underestimating the costs of these megaprojects does not improve the level of trust in their promoters. The allegation of ‘strategic misrepresentation’ hangs in the air. That decision makers buy into a fiction of low costs and high benefit until too much is invested to cancel the project. A more charitable view is that there is the tacit belief that the strategic benefits go beyond the narrow Treasury accounting tools. It may be true but it is neither transparent nor democratic to proceed on this basis.

Perhaps these allegations are too hard on the consultants and engineers who deliver projects like HS2. Large infrastructure is not as easy as it once was. When Stevenson and Brunel brought their railways into London they had to deal with a handful of landed interests. Most of the people displaced would not even have had the vote. One of the great successes of modern democracies is the duty of care to individuals, communities and the environment that constrain the market and the state. The demands, that projects like HS2 minimise the disruption they cause, are often the result of an active civil society. However they do add to the overall cost.

Is there a better way of doing things? If we look at HS2 we can see more complex, interesting politics beneath the polarised arguments that the media love. Civil society groups have been involved in establishing normative standards. CPRE has recently launched a project to make information on the scale of construction and impact of the project more transparent. The National Trust has devoted considerable resources to alternative landscape designs in consultation with local people. Even groups that oppose the project outright have suggested solutions like a property bond that deserve consideration. HS2Ltd do have high level input from the larger environmental charities through an NGO forum but the impact is hard to assess. However their consultation process seems to be fractious and confrontational rather than reassuring or achieving consensus with the communities affected.

With parliament making the ultimate decision much of the debate about the principles of the project will be conducted within civil society. The Hybrid Bill process restricts what can be considered. With an all-party consensus the ultimate outcome is not in doubt. The protest and legal challenge will continue and so we return to the question. Is there a better, possibly more democratic, way of reaching controversial infrastructure decisions? It seems strange that projects that tout their innovation seem happy to rely on Victorian decision making processes.

John Dewey’s principle, those affected by a decision ought to be able to influence it, is not a bad one. Projects like TGV Med have experimented with more consensual processes that try to combine expert knowledge and the views of those affected with some success. There are advantages to opening up the closed decision making processes that deliver large transport projects. The evidence above suggests there are plenty of civil society groups willing and able to engage.

Maybe we should accept that the experts and national politicians know what’s best. Or accept a very British way of reaching difficult decisions; conflictual, with a big fight that hopefully works out for the best. On the other hand maybe it is time to look for a more consensual way of making big choices over the infrastructure we need for an uncertain future?

Note: This article gives the views of theauthor, and not the position of the British Politics and Policy blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please read our comments policy before posting.

About the Author

Dan Durrantis a PhD Researcher at the OMEGA Centre for Megaprojects in Transport and Development, part of UCL’s Bartlett School of Planning. His research is into the role of civil society in megaproject decision making and he is focusing on HS2.

3 Comments

As one member along with many others from civic society attempting to wrestle with the powerful vested interests that drive HS2, I whole heartedly agree with the premise of Dan Durrant’s thought-provoking article.
Having never been involved in campaigning against an infrastructure project previously let alone one labelled with the emotive rhetoric of being in the ‘national interest’, I’m unaware of precedent. However, experience of battling with HS2 has been punctuated with ever shifting ‘goal posts’. Once one rationale for HS2 is more or less demolished, the promoters move to a new priority area and it is noticeable that previously favoured strategic arguments are not trotted out as frequently as previously.
Opponents of HS2 believe it is a myth that HS2 will revolutionise the economies of northern cities and reduce the imbalance between north and south. Many now believe that the opposite could be the case. It is clear that if £50 billion is spent it must bring some benefits but to whom at what price. The figures that dangle temptingly regarding employment generation as a direct result of building HS2 fluctuate wildly between tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands and so lack credibility. A KPMG study suggested that up to 70,000 jobs would be relocated and thus lost elsewhere.
The remaining argument for the colossal spend on HS2 is one of capacity. While proponents argue that the WCML will be completely full within a decade other figures obtained from passengers reporting plenty of capacity at peak times and even physical head counts suggest otherwise. Indeed, the capacity argument is made more opaque and difficult to really nail down because of the DfT’s intransigence and refusal to release up to date passenger data on the grounds of commercial confidentiality.
The main thrust of Dan’s argument is that there should be some better way to balance the benefits of infrastructure and weigh these against impacts to ‘host’ communities; families facing forced relocation, businesses facing lost trade or shut down and prolonged disruption. Accounting systems need to balance credit and debit. So too, infrastructure projects should be required to put a realistic monetary value on costs of environmental damage, loss of amenities, disrupted lives and scrambled communities. Communities from one end of the HS2 route to the other will certainly agree it is ‘clear that the beneficiaries of HS2 are not the ones bearing the cost’..

A thoughtful piece, thank you.
I would argue that you characterise opposition chiefly as driven by local interest. I absolutely agree that the term NIMBY is lazy and foolish, but you omit the voices of opposition raied against HS2 in terms of such as its economic impact, its value for money, the risk it will exacerbate rather than help the North/South divide, environmental impact (in the widest sense of a contribution to climate change, not just a particular location/landscape).

Underlying the increasingly hardened debate is that the purpose of HS2 has always been ill-defined. Only now does it seem to be that its supporters are settling on rail capacity as its true purpose. But this is only after many other arguments in favour have been shown to be false (eg the economic benefit of time saving which underpins the business case). It feels like capacity is their “last stand”

The problem with HS2 is that it is increasingly clear that it was thought-up as a “grand project” and has been hunting around for a purpose ever since.

The solution is for big national interest problems to be articulated properly and for a mature debate to decide on the best solution. If rail capacity is a critical problem then where is the serious study of solutions that do not require the disbenefits of a high speed line? Instead we have a range of politicians making a range of claims from job creation to the complete gibberish of ‘the global race’ to saving the green belt (sometimes contradictory in the case of the Nick Clegg who has said HS2 will ‘heal the North/South divide and also that it must be built to protect London’s interests) all to support a scheme that must be built for no other reason that it has gained so much momentum that cancelling it would mean a huge loss of face.

The public, rather than seeing a collection of arguments that come together as something compelling, are presented with spare parts stitched together in the style of Frankenstein’s monster. They respond accordingly.

Perhaps the true problem is not that “we have consensus in parliament and a polarised public debate”.

Perhaps the true problem is that we have a metro London elites’ consensus takes that takes precedence over any civic, political or business interests outside metro London and it’s South East England hinterland. Underlying this problem is the question of ‘is London any longer a UK city? Its purpose and role now seems to be host and servant of globally nomadic cohorts – many of whose wealth has, for example, so distorted the London housing system as to render damage to the rest of the entire UK economy.

HS2 is a telling case in point. HS2 was fundamentally flawed in concept from the outset. It was essentially yet another ‘UK’ infrastructure project that was intended, primarily, to service the needs of metro London. As Spain’s – originally much vaunted – huge investment in new rail infrastructure has shown, if you begin with the capital city it is the capital city that disproportionately benefits. The capital, moreover benefits at the expense, comparatively, of the regional cities. Those regional cities find that their ‘improved’ rail infrastructure simply means that they are further subordinated as servicing agents for the needs of the capital.

In similar vein the UK has no effective air transport policy – instead it has a metro London airports infrastructure serving programme.

Now… if HS2 had been conceived as starting in, between and from the ‘regions’ in the UK… now that would have been a new epoch and paradigm creating scenario.

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